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European Journal of Special Needs Education

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Teachers' attitudes towards integration / inclusion: a review of the literature

Elias Avramidis & Brahm Norwich Available online: 22 Oct 2010

To cite this article: Elias Avramidis & Brahm Norwich (2002): Teachers' attitudes towards integration / inclusion: a review of the literature, European Journal of Special Needs Education, 17:2, 129-147 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08856250210129056

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Eur. J. of Special Needs Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2002), pp. 129147

Teachers attitudes towards integration/inclusion: a review of the literature

ELIAS AVRAMIDIS* AND BRAHM NORWICH
*University of Bath, UK University of Exeter, UK

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Address for correspondence: Dr Elias Avramidis, Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. E-mail: E.Avramidis@bath.ac.uk

ABSTRACT On the assumption that the successful implementation of any inclusive policy is largely dependent on educators being positive about it, a great deal of research has sought to examine teachers attitudes towards the integration and, more recently, the inclusion of children with special educational needs in the mainstream school. This paper reviews this large body of research and, in so doing, explores a host of factors that might impact upon teacher acceptance of the inclusion principle. The analyses showed evidence of positive attitudes, but no evidence of acceptance of a total inclusion or zero reject approach to special educational provision. Teachers attitudes were found to be strongly in uenced by the nature and severity of the disabling condition presented to them (child-related variables) and less by teacher-related variables. Further, educational environment-related variables, such as the availability of physical and human support, were consistently found to be associated with attitudes to inclusion. After a brief discussion of critical methodological issues germane to the research findings, the paper provides directions for future research based on alternative methodologies. KEYWORDS Integration, inclusion, teacher attitudes, inclusive education

European Journal of Special Needs Education ISSN 0885-6257 print/ISSN 1469-591X online 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/08856250210129056

130 European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2002)

BACKGROUND Philosophies regarding the education of children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities have changed dramatically over the past two decades and several countries have led in the effort to implement policies which foster the integration and, more recently, inclusion of these students into mainstream environments. Here, although the movement of inclusive education has gained momentum in recent years, a key element in the successful implementation of the policy is the views of the personnel who have the major responsibility for implementing it, that is teachers. It is argued that teachers beliefs and attitudes are critical in ensuring the success of inclusive practices since teachers acceptance of the policy of inclusion is likely to affect their commitment to implementing it (Norwich, 1994). Based on that assumption, a line of research has generated important findings that have practical implications for policy-makers endeavouring to promote inclusion. Although some reviews of this literature exist (Hannah, 1988; Jamieson, 1984; Salvia and Munson, 1986; Yanito et al., 1987), these were based mainly on studies conducted in the early 1980s and, moreover, focused solely on American studies. A more recent attempt to synthesize the literature was Scruggs and Mastropieris (1996) meta-analysis which, albeit systematic, included only a small number of American studies. In this respect, no comprehensive research synthesis to date has been completed. The purpose of this paper is to review the large body of literature on mainstream teachers attitudes towards integration and, more recently, inclusion. In doing so, we hope to elucidate some of the factors that might impact on the formation of these attitudes. We also discuss pertinent methodological issues and outline possible directions for future research on teachers attitudes. SEARCH PROCEDURE Databases including ERIC (19842000), BEI (19862000) and PsychINFO (19842000) were searched for articles describing teacher attitudes towards mainstreaming, integration and inclusion. Reference lists from relevant books (e.g. Jones, 1984; Yuker, 1988b), literature reviews (e.g. Yanito et al., 1987) and all identified relevant reports were searched for additional references. Moreover, the following international journals were hand-searched for relevant reports: British Journal of Educational Psychology; British Journal of Special Education; Educational Psychology; European Journal of Special Needs Education; Exceptional Children; International Journal of Disability, Development and Education; Journal of Learning Disabilities; and Journal of Special Education. For this synthesis, reports were included only if their main research focus was on teachers attitudes. Not included were articles that reported student teachers attitudes towards integration/inclusion (with the exception of one study, Ward and Le Dean, 1996), neither were studies conducted prior to 1980. Given that teachers attitudes towards integration and inclusion have received unprecedented interest over the past 20 years, the review presented here cannot possibly be complete. However, where previous efforts have focused solely on American attitude studies, the one reported here endeavours to present as many international studies as possible. In doing so, the aim is not to draw rm generalizations since studies conducted in different countries cannot possibly be comparable given the differences in their education systems. Moreover, there are variations within countries in terms of philosophies, policies and systems. However, despite these differences, there is evidence (Meijer, Pijl and Hegarty, 1994) that in most OECD countries up to

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1 per cent of the school population is taught in special settings (special schools or classrooms); it is this small group of children with signi cant and complex needs that forms the focus of this literature review and not the much wider percentage of pupils experiencing learning dif culties of a mild to moderate nature commonly placed in mainstream settings. A further issue that was taken into account in the presentation of the studies here is the distinction between those investigating attitudes to integration and those towards inclusion. Although the two terms are often used interchangeably and it is not at all clear that they have common meaning across national boundaries, inclusion has recently superseded integration in the vocabulary of special educators as a more radical term located within a human rights discourse. In the UK context, the principle of integration is strongly associated with the publication of the Warnock Report (1978) where the term was viewed as part of a wider movement of normalization in Western countries. In this report, integration was seen to take various forms locational integration (placing children with special needs physically into mainstream schools), social interaction (some degree of social but not educational interaction between children with special needs and their mainstream peers) to functional integration (some unspecified level of participation in common learning activities and experiences). However, although the Integration movement strongly advocated the placement of children in the least restrictive environment, there was no expectation that every pupil with special needs would be functionally integrated, but rather that children will be integrated in the manner and to the extent that is appropriate to their particular needs and circumstances. In this respect, integration was seen as an assimilationist process, in the sense of viewing a full mainstream placement as depending on whether the child can assimilate to a largely unchanged school environment (Thomas, 1997). However, functional integration in the context of whole-school policies was clearly intended to change the school environment. Inclusion implies a restructuring of mainstream schooling that every school can accommodate every child irrespective of disability (accommodation rather than assimilation) and ensures that all learners belong to a community. Such an argument locates the discussion in a social-ethical discourse which is strongly focused on values (see Salamanca Declaration: Unesco, 1994). Some favour the term inclusion because it is thought to embody a range of assumptions about the meaning and purpose of schools and embraces a much deeper philosophical notion of what integration should mean. Finally, the term inclusion has come to take on a wider significance and popularity in linking up with the recent development of the concept of inclusion or social inclusion as having broader social and political value. Inclusion in this wider sense is comparable to equality as a social value in relating to all aspects of social disadvantage, oppression and discrimination. Nevertheless, integration has been the main focus of research, and it is towards presenting this body of work that we turn rst. OVERVIEW OF STUDIES OF TEACHERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS INTEGRATION Although the movement for inclusive education is part of a broad human rights agenda, many educators have serious reservations about supporting the widespread placement of pupils with SEN in mainstream schools. Research undertaken in Australia about professional attitudes towards integration education has provided a range of information in this area. Studies undertaken between 1985 and 1989 covered the

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attitudes of headteachers (Center et al., 1985), teachers (Center and Ward, 1987), psychologists (Center and Ward, 1989) and pre-school administrators (Bochner and Pieterse, 1989), and demonstrated that professional groups vary considerably in their perceptions of which types of children are most likely to be successfully integrated. (Summary data from these studies were presented by Ward, Center and Bochner, 1994.) These studies suggested that attitudes towards integration were strongly in uenced by the nature of the disabilities and/or educational problems being presented and, to a lesser extent, by the professional background of the respondents. The most enthusiastic group were those responsible for pre-school provision and the most cautious group were the classroom teachers, with heads, resource teachers and psychologists in between. A similar level of caution was re ected in another Australian study involving prospective teachers (Ward and Le Dean, 1996) who, although positive towards the general philosophy of integration, differentiated between different types of needs. Other studies have indicated that school district staff who are more distant from students, such as administrators and advisers, express more positive attitudes to integration than those closer to the classroom context, the class teachers. Headteachers have been found to hold the most positive attitudes to integration, followed by special education teachers, with classroom teachers having the most negative attitudes (Garvar-Pinhas and Schmelkin, 1989; Norwich, 1994). Similarly, Forlin (1995) found that teachers from the Education Support Centres (special centres that cater for the educational needs of children with SEN requiring limited or extended support) were more accepting of a child with intellectual and physical disability than educators from regular mainstream primary schools which co-existed on the same site. Forlin concluded that special education resource teachers tend to have a more positive attitude to inclusion than their mainstream counterparts. This difference was also re ected in a sample of Greek mainstream and special teachers (Padeliadou and Lampropoulou, 1997). Bowman (1986), in her 14-nation Unesco study of approximately 1,000 teachers with experience of teaching children with SEN, reported a wide difference in teacher opinions regarding integration. The countries surveyed were Egypt, Jordan, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Botswana, Senegal, Zambia, Australia, Thailand, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Norway and Portugal. The teachers were found to favour different types of children for integration into ordinary classes. Interestingly, Bowman noted that in countries which had a law requiring integration, teachers expressed more favourable views (ranging from 47 to 93 per cent). Teachers from countries which offered the most sophisticated segregated educational provision were less supportive to integration (ranging from 0 to 28 per cent). Leyser, Kapperman and Keller (1994) undertook a cross-cultural study of teacher attitudes towards integration in the USA, Germany, Israel, Ghana, Taiwan and the Philippines. Their ndings showed that there were differences in attitude to integration between these countries. Teachers in the USA and Germany had the most positive attitudes. Positive attitudes in the USA were attributed to integration being widely practised there as the result of Public Law 94-142. The positive views expressed by the German teachers were seen as surprising because, at the time of the investigation, Germany had no special education legislation, their teachers were not provided with special education training, their children with SEN were educated in segregated settings and integration was being practised only on an experimental basis. This nding goes against a simple relationship between legislative system and inclusive attitudes as Bowmans study had suggested. The authors speculated that the positive views expressed by the German teachers represented an overall sensitivity of Germans towards minorities and, thus, towards disabled people. Teacher attitudes were

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signi cantly less positive in Ghana, the Philippines, Israel and Taiwan. The authors reasoned that this could probably be due to limited or non-existent training for teachers to acquire integration competencies; the limited opportunities for integration in some of these countries; and the overall small percentage of children who receive services at all (none of these countries had a history of offering children with SEN specially designed educational opportunities). Other attitude studies from the USA have suggested that general educators have not developed an empathetic understanding of disabling conditions (Berryman, 1989; Horne and Ricciardo, 1988), nor do they appear to be supportive of the placement of special needs learners in their regular classrooms (Bacon and Schulz, 1991; Barton, 1992). This can be explained by the fact that integration had often been effected in an ad hoc manner, without systematic modi cations to a schools organization, due regard to teachers instructional expertise or any guarantee of continuing resource provision. Center and Wards (1987) Australian study with regular teachers indicated that their attitudes to integration re ected lack of con dence both in their own instructional skills and in the quality of support personnel available to them. They were positive about integrating only those children whose disabling characteristics were not likely to require extra instructional or management skills on the part of the teacher. However, a UK study by Clough and Lindsay (1991), which investigated the attitudes of 584 teachers towards integration and to different kinds of support, revealed a wider positive view of integration. Their research provided some evidence that attitudes had shifted in favour of integrating children with SEN over the past ten years or so. They argue that this was partly the result of the experiences teachers had had: whether they had developed some competence and if they had not been swamped, as some had feared at the time of publication of the Warnock Report (1978). Nevertheless, again responses appeared to vary according to the educational needs presented. Finally, Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996) in their meta-analysis of American attitude studies, which included 28 survey reports conducted from at least 1958 through 1995, reported that although two-thirds (65 per cent) of the teachers surveyed (10,560 in total) agreed with the general concept of integration, only 40 per cent believed that this was a realistic goal for most children and responses, again, appeared to vary according to disabling conditions. Another important nding was that there was no correlation between positive attitudes towards inclusion and date of publication, suggesting that teachers views have not substantially changed over the years. OVERVIEW OF STUDIES OF TEACHERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSION More recent studies have been of teachers attitudes towards inclusion. Early American studies on full inclusion reported results which were not supportive of a full placement of pupils with SEN in mainstream schools. A study carried out by Coates (1989), for example, reported that general education teachers in Iowa did not have a negative view of pullout programmes, nor were they supportive of full inclusion. Similar findings were reported by Semmel et al. (1991) who, after having surveyed 381 elementary educators in Illinois and California (both general and special), concluded that those educators were not dissatis ed with a special education system that operated pullout special educational programmes. Another American study by Vaughn et al. (1996) examined mainstream and special teachers perceptions of inclusion through the use of focus group interviews.

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The majority of these teachers, who were not currently participating in inclusive programmes, had strong, negative feelings about inclusion and felt that decisionmakers were out of touch with classroom realities. The teachers identified several factors that would affect the success of inclusion, including class size, inadequate resources, the extent to which all students would bene t from inclusion and lack of adequate teacher preparation. However, in studies where teachers had active experience of inclusion, contradictory ndings were reported; a study by Villa et al. (1996) yielded results which favoured the inclusion of children with SEN in the ordinary school. The researchers noted that teacher commitment often emerges at the end of the implementation cycle, after the teachers have gained mastery of the professional expertise needed to implement inclusive programmes. This nding was also re ected in the Sebastian and MathotBuckners (1998) case study of a senior high and a middle school in Washington School District, Utah, where students with severe learning dif culties had been integrated. In this study, 20 educators were interviewed at the beginning and end of the school year to determine attitudes about inclusion. The educators felt that inclusion was working well and, although more support was needed, it was perceived as a challenge. Similar findings were reported by LeRoy and Simpson (1996) who studied the impact of inclusion over a three-year period in the state of Michigan. Their study showed that as teachers experience with children with SEN increased, their con dence to teach these children also increased. The evidence seems to indicate that teachers negative or neutral attitudes at the beginning of an innovation such as inclusive education may change over time as a function of experience and the expertise that develops through the process of implementation. This conclusion was also reported in a recent UK survey of teachers attitudes in one LEA, where teachers who had been implementing inclusive programmes for some years held more positive attitudes than the rest of the sample, who had had little or no such experience (Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden, 2000). However, there have been no studies which show the move towards more positive attitudes to inclusion, leading to widespread acceptance of full inclusion. FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHERS ATTITUDES Research has suggested that teachers attitudes might be in uenced by a number of factors which are, in many ways, interrelated. For example, in the majority of integration attitude studies reviewed earlier, responses appeared to vary according to disabling conditions. In other words, the nature of the disabilities and/or educational problems presented have been noted to in uence teachers attitudes. Following the typology developed by Salvia and Munson (1986), these factors could be termed as child-related variables. Moreover, demographic and other personality factors and their in uence on teachers attitudes have been examined and this group of variables could be classi ed under the heading teacher-related variables. Finally, the speci c context/environment has also been found to in uence attitudes and these variables can be termed educational environment-related. This framework of synthesizing research ndings has been adopted here for the presentation of the existing literature. Child-related Variables Several early integration studies have been concerned with determining teachers attitudes towards different categories of children with SEN and their perceived

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suitability for integration (it is worth emphasizing here that these studies were investigating teachers attitudes towards integration not inclusion, since the latter does not differentiate by category). Teachers concepts of children with SEN normally consist of types of disabilities, their prevalence and the educational needs they exhibit (Clough and Lindsay, 1991). Generally, teachers perceptions could be differentiated on the basis of three dimensions: physical and sensory, cognitive and behaviouralemotional. Forlin (1995) found that educators were cautiously accepting of including a child with cognitive disability and were more accepting of children with physical disabilities. The degree of acceptance for part-time integration was high for children considered to have mild or moderate SEN. The majority of educators (95 per cent) believed that mild physically disabled children should be integrated part-time into mainstream classes, and only a small number of educators (6 per cent) considered full-time placement of children with severe physical disability as acceptable. Similarly, the majority of educators (86 per cent) believed that only children with mild intellectual disability should be integrated part-time into mainstream classes. A very small number of educators (1 per cent) considered full-time placement of children with intellectual disabilities viable because of their belief that it would be more stressful to cope with children with SEN full-time than part-time. Forlins ndings indicated that the degree of acceptance by educators for the placement of children with SEN in mainstream classes declined rapidly with a converse increase in the severity of the disability across both physical and cognitive categories, and placement should be part-time rather than full-time. Ward et al. (1994) assessed teacher attitudes towards inclusion of children with SEN whose disabling conditions or educational difficulties were defined behaviourally rather than categorically. With the cooperation of senior staff from New South Wales Department of School Education, Australia, they produced a list of 30 disabling conditions which they then de ned behaviourally (see ibid., p. 37, for a list of these disability conditions). They felt that this type of operational de nition would have relevance for school practitioners, since traditional category grouping does not necessarily re ect the childs actual educational needs. In general, teachers in their study showed little disagreement about the inclusion of children with SEN perceived as having mild dif culties, since they were not likely to require extra instructional or management skills from the teacher. Included in this group of children were those with mild physical and visual disabilities and mild hearing loss. There was a common uncertainty about the suitability of including children with disabling conditions that in various ways posed additional problems and demanded extra teaching competencies from teachers. Included in this group were children with mild intellectual disability, moderate hearing loss and visual disability and hyperactivity. The teachers were unanimous in their rejection of the inclusion of children with severe disabilities (regarded as being too challenging a group and, at the time of the study, normally educated in special schools). This group consisted of those with profound visual and hearing impairment and moderate intellectual disability. Children with profound sensory disabilities and low cognitive ability (mentally retarded) were considered to have a relatively poor chance of being successfully included. In the Clough and Lindsay (1991) study, the majority of teachers surveyed ranked the needs of children with emotional and behavioural dif culties as being most dif cult to meet, followed by children with learning dif culties. Third in the ranking were children with visual impairments, and fourth were children with a hearing impairment. Clough and Lindsay attributed the low ranking of children with sensory and physical impairments to the relatively infrequent existence at that time of these children in mainstream classes.

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Bowmans (1986) Unesco study indicated that teachers tend to favour different types of children with SEN for integration. Most favoured for integration were children with medical (75.5 per cent) and physical dif culty (63 per cent). These children were considered easiest to manage in the classrooms. Half of the teachers involved in the study felt children with speci c learning dif culty (54 per cent) and speech defects (50 per cent) were suitable for integration. Around a third felt that children with moderate learning difficulties (31 per cent) and severe emotional and behavioural dif culties (38 per cent) were suitable for integration. A quarter of teachers perceived children with sensory impairments, visual (23.5 per cent) and hearing (22.5 per cent), could be integrated in mainstream classes, and very few of the teachers considered that children with severe mental impairments (2.5 per cent) and multiple handicaps (7.5 per cent) could be taught in mainstream classes. There was a wide range between individual countries: this indicates wide differences of teacher attitudes on the suitability of children with various types of SEN for integration in mainstream settings. The greatest differences of attitude between countries were about the integration of children with sensory impairments (visual and hearing) and the lowest were for the integration of children with moderate learning dif culties. Contrary to the evidence reported in most attitude studies (see Salvia and Munsons, 1986, and Jamiesons, 1984, reviews), children with moderate learning dif culties and with severe emotional and behaviour problems were more favoured for integration generally than those with sensory (deaf and blind) impairments. In conclusion, even though in Bowmans (1986) study the opposite was true, teachers seem generally to exhibit a more positive attitude towards the integration of children with physical and sensory impairments than to those with learning dif culties and emotional-behavioural dif culties (EBD). This evidence is also consistent with Chazans (1994) review, and it is especially relevant in the UK context where there has been a dramatic rise in the exclusions from schools of students with EBD. Teacher-related variables A great deal of research regarding teacher characteristics has sought to determine the relationship between those characteristics and attitudes towards children with special needs. Researchers have explored a host of speci c teacher variables, such as gender, age, years of teaching experience, grade level, contact with disabled persons and other personality factors, which might impact upon teacher acceptance of the inclusion principle. A synthesis of these ndings is presented below. Gender With regard to gender, the evidence appears inconsistent; some researchers noted that female teachers had a greater tolerance level for integration and for special needs persons than did male teachers (Aksamit, Morris and Leunberger, 1987; Eichinger, Rizzo and Sirotnik, 1991; Thomas, 1985). Harvey (1985), for example, found that there was a marginal tendency for female teachers to express more positive attitudes towards the idea of integrating children with behaviour problems than male teachers. Others (Beh-Pajooh, 1992; Berryman, 1989; Leyser et al., 1994), however, did not report that gender was related to attitudes (see also reviews by Jamieson, 1984, and Hannah, 1988).

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Age-teaching experience Teaching experience is another teacher-related variable cited by several studies as having an in uence on teachers attitudes. Younger teachers and those with fewer years of experience have been found to be more supportive to integration (Berryman, 1989; Center and Ward, 1987; Clough and Lindsay, 1991). Forlins (1995) study, for example, showed that acceptance of a child with a physical disability was highest among educators with less than six years of teaching and declined with experience for those with six to ten years of teaching. The most experienced educators (greater than 11 years of teaching) were the least accepting. Forlin also obtained a similar result for the integration of a child with intellectual disability. His study seemed to indicate that as educators gained experience in teaching, they became less accepting of integration. Leyser et al. (1994) also found that, in general, teachers with 14 years or less teaching experience had a significantly higher positive score in their attitude to integration compared with those with more than 14 years. They found no signi cant differences in attitudes to integration among teachers whose teaching experience was between one and four years, ve and nine years and ten and 14 years (no mention was made based on individual country). Another study by Harvey (1985) compared the willingness of teacher trainees and primary teachers to accept children with SEN in their classes. His ndings indicated that there was a clear reluctance on the part of the more experienced primary teachers compared to teacher trainees in their willingness to integrate such children. In this respect, it would not be unreasonable to assume that newly quali ed teachers hold positive attitudes towards integration when entering the professional arena. However, although the above studies indicated that younger teachers and those with fewer years of experience are more supportive of integration, other investigators have reported that teaching experience was not significantly related to teachers attitudes (Avramidis et al., 2000; Leyser, Volkan and Ilan, 1989; Rogers, 1987; Stephens and Braun, 1980). Grade level taught The variable grade level taught and its influence on teachers attitudes towards integration has been the focus of several studies. Leyser et al.s (1994) international study found that senior high school teachers displayed significantly more positive attitudes towards integration than did junior high school and elementary school teachers, and junior high school teachers were significantly more positive than elementary school teachers (again, no mention was made based on individual country). Other American studies revealed that elementary and secondary teachers differed in their views of integration and the kinds of classroom accommodations they make for students who are integrated (Chalmers, 1991; Rogers, 1987), with elementary teachers reporting more positive views of integration and its possibilities than did their secondary counterparts (Savage and Wienke, 1989). Salvia and Munson (1986), in their review, concluded that as childrens age increased, teacher attitudes became less positive to integration, and attributed that to the fact that teachers of older children tend to be concerned more about subject-matter and less about individual children differences. This was also supported by Clough and Lindsay (1991) who claimed that, for teachers more concerned with subject-matter, the presence of children with SEN in the class is a problem from the practical point of view of managing class activity. In this, it could be argued that primary school ethos is more holistic/inclusive, while

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secondary is subject-based, and that might impinge on teachers attitudes. Although there are studies which have not found a relationship between grade and attitude (see Jamiesons, 1984, and Hannahs, 1988, reviews), it is generally believed that an emphasis on subject-matter af liation is less compatible with inclusion than is a focus on student development. Experience of contact Experience of contact with children with SEN or disabled persons was mentioned by several studies as an important variable in shaping teacher attitudes towards integration. Here, the contact hypothesis suggests that as teachers implement inclusive programmes and therefore get closer to students with signi cant disabilities, their attitudes might become more positive (see Yukers, 1988a, comprehensive review of the research on the effects of personal contact on attitudes towards persons with disabilities). Janney et al. (1995) found that experience with low ability children was an important contributing factor to their eventual acceptance by teachers: Already wary of reforms and overloaded with work, general education teachers initial balancing of the anticipated high cost of integration against its uncertain benefit created hesitation or resistance. Following their implementation experiences, teachers re-evaluated the balance between the cost of teachers time and energy as compared to the benefit for students, and judged the integration effort successful. (p. 436) Leyser et al. (1994) found that, overall, teachers with much experience with disabled persons had signi cantly more favourable attitudes towards integration than those with little or no experience. Findings of several other studies conducted in the USA (Leyser and Lessen, 1985; Stainback, Stainback and Dedrick, 1984), Australia (Harvey, 1985; McDonald, Birnbrauer and Swerissen, 1987) and the UK (Shimman, 1990) have also stressed the importance of increased experience and social contact with children with SEN, in conjunction with the attainment of knowledge and speci c skills in instructional and class management, in the formation of favourable attitudes towards integration. These studies seem to suggest that contact with students with signi cant disabilities, if carefully planned (and supported), results in positive changes in educators attitudes. These studies, coupled with more recent ones on teachers attitudes towards inclusion presented earlier, indicate that as experience of mainstream teachers with children with SEN increases, their attitudes change in a positive direction (LeRoy and Simpson, 1996). However, it is important to note here that social contact per se does not lead to favourable attitudes. Stephens and Braun (1980), for example, found no signi cant correlation between reported contact with students with signi cant disabilities and teachers attitudes towards integrating these students into regular classrooms. Another study by Center and Ward (1987) showed that primary teachers were more tolerant of integration if no special class or unit was attached to their school: they claimed that contact experience with children with SEN did not result in the formation of more positive attitudes. Surprisingly, there is evidence in the literature that social contact could even produce unfavourable attitudes; Forlins (1995) study, for example, indicated that there were differences between teachers who were currently involved with the policy of inclusion and those who were not. Those not involved (but who were aware of the concept of inclusion) believed that coping with a child with SEN and with

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a mainstream child was equally stressful. Those who were involved considered the stress of coping with the child with SEN to be greater than for dealing with a mainstream child. Thus this study indicated that experience of a child with SEN might not promote favourable acceptance for inclusion, due to the stress factor. Training Another factor which has attracted considerable attention is the knowledge about children with SEN gained through formal studies during pre- and in-service training. This was considered an important factor in improving teachers attitudes towards the implementation of an inclusive policy. Without a coherent plan for teacher training in the educational needs of children with SEN, attempts to include these children in the mainstream would be dif cult. The importance of training in the formation of positive attitudes towards integration was supported by the ndings of Beh-Pajooh (1992) and Shimman (1990), based on teachers in colleges. Both studied the attitudes of college teachers in the UK towards students with SEN and their integration into ordinary college courses. Their ndings showed that college teachers who had been trained to teach students with learning dif culties expressed more favourable attitudes and emotional reactions to students with SEN and their integration than did those who had no such training. Several other studies conducted in the USA (Buell et al., 1999; Van-Reusen, Shoho and Barker, 2000), Australia (Center and Ward, 1987) and the UK (Avramidis et al., 2000) tend to reinforce the view that special education qualifications acquired from pre- or in-service courses were associated with less resistance to inclusive practices. Dickens-Smith (1995), for example, studied the attitudes of both regular and special educators towards inclusion (not integration). Her respondents were given an attitude survey before and after staff development. Both groups of respondents revealed more favourable attitudes towards inclusion after their in-service training than they did before, with regular education teachers showing the strongest positive attitude change. Dickens-Smith concluded that staff development is the key to the success of inclusion. Teachers beliefs More recently, Canadian research has identified another factor that influences not only teachers reported attitudes towards inclusion, but their actual teaching styles and adaptations in heterogeneous classrooms; that is, their views about their responsibilities in dealing with the needs of students who are exceptional or at risk. Jordan, Lindsay and Stanovich (1997) found that teachers holding a pathognomonic perspective, in which the teacher assumes that a disability is inherent in the individual student, differed in their teaching instruction from those closer to an interventionist perspective, in which the teacher attributes student problems to an interaction between student and environment. Teachers with the most pathognomonic perspectives demonstrated the least effective interaction patterns, whereas those with interventionist perspectives engaged in many more academic interactions and persisted more in constructing student understanding. This finding was further reinforced by another study by Stanovich and Jordan (1998), which attempted to predict the performance of teacher behaviours associated with effective teaching in heterogeneous classrooms. This investigation was more

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sophisticated than previous ones because it was not only based on self-reports and interviews, but also on observation of actual teaching behaviours. The results revealed that the strongest predictor of effective teaching behaviour was the subjective school norm as operationalized by the principals attitudes and beliefs about heterogeneous classrooms and his or her pathognomonic/interventionist orientation. Moreover, teachers responses on the pathognomonic/interventionist interview scale were also found to be important predictors of effective teaching behaviour. The above studies have provided evidence that the schools ethos and the teachers beliefs have a considerable impact on teachers attitudes towards inclusion which, in turn, are translated into practice. It can be said that teachers who accept responsibility for teaching a wide diversity of students (recognizing thus the contribution their teaching has on the students progress), and feel con dent in their instructional and management skills (as a result of training), can successfully implement inclusive programmes (see the study by Soodak, Podell and Lehman, 1998, where receptivity towards inclusion was associated with higher teacher ef cacy).

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Teachers socio-political views There have been a few studies of integration attitudes in relation to educators wider personal beliefs (political outlook, socio-political views) and attitudes. Stephens and Braun (1980), in a US study, found that attitudes to integration were more positive when teachers believed that publicly funded schools should educate exceptional children. Feldman and Altman (1985), in another US study, found that classroom teachers with abstract conceptual systems held more positive integration attitudes depending on the ethnic origin of the integrated child. Teachers with abstract conceptual systems showed less need for order, less pessimism and less interpersonal aggression, characteristics which have been related to low levels of authoritarianism. In his comparative study of educators in Devon, England, and Arizona, USA, Thomas (1985) found that educators with low scores on conservatism tended to have less negative attitudes to integration. More recently, Norwich (1994), in his comparative study of educators in rural and urban areas in Pennsylvania, USA, and Northamptonshire, England, compared the relationships of integration attitudes to political outlook, socio-political views and other situational factors (contact with disability, professional position). In this study, integration attitudes were related to socio-political views only in the UK sample. Norwich concluded that while educators socio-political or ideological beliefs and values have some relation to integration, attitudes cannot be considered as a strong predictor alone and other situational factors (provision in the two areas and cultural issues) needed to be taken into consideration. Educational Environment-related Variables A number of studies have examined environmental factors and their in uence in the formation of teachers attitudes towards integration/inclusion. One factor that has consistently been found to be associated with more positive attitudes is the availability of support services at the classroom and the school levels (Center and Ward, 1987; Clough and Lindsay, 1991; Myles and Simpson, 1989). Here, support could be seen as both physical (resources, teaching materials, IT equipment, a restructured physical environment, etc.) and human (learning support assistants, special teachers, speech therapists, etc.).

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Janney et al. (1995) found that the majority of teachers in their study were hesitant initially to accept children with SEN in their classes, because they anticipated a worstcase scenario where both they and the children with SEN would be left to fend for themselves. Later, these teachers were receptive towards these children after having received necessary and suf cient support. Respondents acknowledged that the support received from the relevant authorities was instrumental in allaying their apprehension that part-time integration would result in extraordinary workloads. A significant restructuring of the physical environment (making buildings accessible to students with physical disabilities) and the provision of adequate and appropriate equipment and materials were also instrumental in the development of these positive attitudes. Besides those mentioned by Janney et al., other forms of physical support, such as availability of adopted teaching materials (LeRoy and Simpson, 1996; Center and Ward, 1987) and smaller classes (Bowman, 1986; Center and Ward, 1987; Clough and Lindsay, 1991; Harvey, 1985), have also been found to generate positive attitudes towards inclusion. Another type of support, that of the continuous encouragement from the headteacher, has also been mentioned in several studies as being instrumental in the creation of positive attitudes to inclusion. In the Janney et al. study (1995), the enthusiastic support from headteachers was an attributing factor to the success of the parttime integration programme in the schools they studied. Chazan (1994), in his review of relevant literature, concluded that mainstream teachers have a greater tolerance of integration if headteachers are supportive. Similarly, Center and Wards (1987) study reported that mainstream teachers whose headteachers had provided some form of support for the integration programme exhibited a more positive attitude towards its implementation than those who had not received any (see also Thomas, 1985). Support from specialist resource teachers was also identi ed as an important factor in shaping positive teacher attitudes to inclusion (Kauffman, Lloyd and McGee, 1989). Janney et al. (1995) found that one of the factors cited by their respondents that had contributed to the success of the part-time integration programme they were implementing was the existence of effective support, both interpersonal and taskrelated, provided by the schools special education teachers. Clough and Lindsay (1991) argued that special education specialist teachers are important co-workers in providing advice to subject specialist teachers on how to make a particular subject accessible to children with SEN. Center and Ward (1987) found that children with a mild sensory disability integrated in mainstream classes did not cause anxiety to mainstream teachers because of the con dence generated by the presence of itinerant teachers for these children. Their study showed that experience of working with itinerant teachers positively affected teachers attitudes. The importance of support from specialist resource teachers was also highlighted in another study conducted in the USA (Minke et al., 1996), which compared the attitudes towards inclusion and the perceptions of self-ef cacy, competence, teaching satisfaction and judgements of the appropriateness of teaching adaptation of regular education teachers who co-taught with resource teachers in inclusive classrooms and their counterparts in traditional classrooms. Regular teachers in inclusive classrooms reported positive attitudes towards inclusion and high perceptions of self-ef cacy, competence and satisfaction. Regular teachers in traditional classrooms held less positive perceptions and viewed classroom adaptations as less feasible, and less frequently used, than did teachers in classrooms with the protected resource of two teachers. Other aspects of the mainstream school environment have also been identified in the above studies as being obstacles that have to be surmounted in order for

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142 European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2002)

inclusive programmes to be successfully implemented; for example, more often than not, teachers report overcrowded classrooms, insufficient pre-prepared materials (differentiated packages), insuf cient time to plan with learning support team, lack of a modified/flexible timetable, inadequately available support from external specialists and lack of regular INSET (Avramidis et al., 2000). In particular, the need for more non-contact time so they can plan collaboratively has been stressed in a number of American studies (Diebold and von Eschenbach, 1991; Semmel et al., 1991). In the Myles and Simpson (1989) investigation, for example, 48 out of 55 teachers (87.2 per cent) reported their perceived need for 1 hour or more of daily planning time for inclusion. It could be said that mainstream teachers feel that implementing an inclusive programme would involve a considerable workload on their part, as a result of increased planning for meeting the needs of a very diverse population. In this respect, human and physical support can be seen as important factors in generating positive attitudes among mainstream teachers towards the inclusion of children with SEN.

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SOME CONCLUSIONS/HYPOTHESES EMERGING FROM THE LITERATURE REVIEW The research synthesis presented above reveals that teachers, although positive towards the general philosophy of inclusive education, do not share a total inclusion approach to special educational provision. Instead, they hold differing attitudes about school placements, based largely upon the nature of the students disabilities. Teachers are more willing to include students with mild disabilities or physical/sensory impairments than students with more complex needs. In particular, there is enough evidence to suggest that, in the case of the more severe learning needs and behavioural dif culties, teachers hold negative attitudes to the implementation of inclusion. Given the consistency of this trend both across countries and across time, governments wishing to promote inclusive education have a dif cult task convincing their educators about the feasibility of the policy. Consequently, it seems imperative that the process is carefully planned and well supported, so that teachers initial reservations or concerns are overcome. That would require, in turn, a careful and exible allocation of the available resources based on the severity of needs represented in the inclusive settings. Another conclusion of this review is that the evidence regarding teacher-related variables is inconsistent and none of them alone could be regarded as a strong predictor of educator attitudes. On the other hand, there is sufficient consistency regarding educational environment-related variables, which suggests that a signi cant restructuring in the mainstream school environment should take place before students with signi cant disabilities are included. Again, it seems reasonable to conclude here that with the provision of more resources and support, teachers attitudes could become more positive. The primary implication for practice is the setting of appropriate external support systems (and the expansion and reorganization of the existing ones) operating across schools, and the setting of learning support teams within the schools, supporting individual teachers who request guidance over a teaching concern relating to special educational needs. Further, the provision of extensive opportunities for training at the pre- and inservice levels should be seen as a top priority for the policy-makers. The assumption here is that if teachers receive assistance in mastering the skills required to implement an innovation such as inclusion, they will become more committed to the change (and more effective) as their effort and skill increase. In this respect, it could be concluded

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here that while teachers are likely to show initial resistance to any innovative policy, their attitudes might become more positive later on, as they develop the necessary expertise to implement the policy and experience the success of their efforts. This hypothesis also emerged from an Australian study (Harvey, 1990) which compared the attitudes of an 1984 sample of teachers, teachers-in-training and non-teachers in Victoria, Australia, to corresponding groups six years later. In 1990 the teacher groups expressed more positive responses than had their counterparts in 1984. Further, while the teacher groups in 1984 were less positive than the non-teachers, in 1990 this difference had disappeared. The author concluded that after six years of experience with an integration policy (what Harvey calls a no choice policy), teachers attitudes were more positive. This evidence indicates the necessity of adopting a gradual approach in the implementation of inclusion, and for this reorganization to succeed, careful planning, monitoring and review of the process is required. However, as indicated earlier in this review, there have been no studies which show the move towards more positive attitudes to inclusion leading to widespread acceptance of full inclusion. METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Many researchers investigating teachers attitudes towards integration have used Likert-type inventories in attempting to ascertain the extent to which respondents agree or disagree with the general concept of integration as related to a range of disabling conditions. In this, much of the previous research has thus far been primarily represented by acceptance/rejection issues reflecting the traditional categories of disability, without much effort directed at uncovering the factors that may underlie particular attitudes. However, the use of labels or categories of disability, such as physically disabled, Downs syndrome or autistic, raises the issue that the respondents in a population may have multiple interpretations for the same label; that occurs when teachers attribute different characteristics to a label based on their experience, or lack of it, which could be positive or negative and be largely unpredictable across a population of teachers. The problem of multiple interpretations can be alleviated by providing speci c descriptions (in the form of vignettes) of the behaviours and characteristics of persons with disabilities, rather than referring to a group of persons by a disabling condition. Moreover, in this line of research, paper-and-pencil measures prevailed in the methodologies and few attempts were made to include other sources of data, such as teacher interviews, or other unobtrusive measures to validate the measurements taken. Further, the signi cance of these studies lies in the assumption that the reported attitudes will be expressed in behaviour. Given the fact that integration and, more recently, inclusion are politically correct ideas, there is always the danger of the respondents giving socially desirable answers that have little or no correspondence with their everyday behaviour. Teachers may endorse general statements in favour of having children with dif culties in regular classrooms, but it is another matter entirely how willing they are to make speci c adaptations for these children. For this reason, it is recommended that observations of teachers actual classroom behaviour and interactions with the integrated child are conducted. One limitation of direct observations, of course, is that the person being observed may alter his or her behaviour during the observation period. However, one is more likely to observe samples of true behaviour over periodic observations, rather than by relying solely on questionnaire data. Furthermore, the present review highlights the need for adopting alternative research designs for the study of teachers attitudes. As Eiser (1994) reminds us,

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mainstream psychological research on attitudes has taken the individual self as both the starting-point and the focus of analysis, resulting often in a psychologizing about social issues without articulating how social interaction makes psychological processes the way they are. Indeed, the great majority of the studies reviewed above employed traditional quantitative research designs (survey) and investigated individualistic experiences of inclusion. However, as Eiser argues, there is an interdependence of the individual and the social; in other words, attitudes should not be viewed as solely personal, but as arising out of interactions with others in the system (e.g. school). Given this social constructivist view of attitude as context dependent and responsive to factors within a particular sociocultural environment, future research would bene t from employing alternative methods, such as life history, narrative or autobiography, to examine teachers attitudes. These methods focus on participants own narratives (the so-called emic perspective) and can lead to an improved understanding of the complex and interrelated processes of personal experiences, attitudes and practices.

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Directions for Future Research Although research on teachers attitudes towards inclusion has been on the increase in the last few years, research is needed to examine additional factors which in uence the formation of positive attitudes towards inclusion. For example, more specific information should be gathered about the quality of the training opportunities that teachers had in implementing inclusion with regard to their duration, content and intensity, as well as about the quality of their experiences with different groups of exceptional learners. For example, if training, whether at the pre- or in-service level is indeed an important factor in modifying teachers attitudes, how can we prepare our future teachers and, at the same time, facilitate the professional development of those currently in schools, so that they feel more confident in implementing inclusive programmes? Similarly, if experience of inclusion promotes positive attitudes, how can we support teachers (the main agents of the implementation of the policy) as schools become more inclusive, so their experiences are positive? Other school factors that impinge on attitudes and school practices, such as ethos, policies, organization, instructional arrangements and the utilization of resources, need to be explored. Future research could also focus on more longitudinal qualitative case studies of teachers attitudes and practices as schools move towards more inclusive education. These studies could examine transformation across time and allow for a more thorough investigation of teachers attitudes towards the process. Studies of this nature (see Avramidis, Bayliss and Burden, in press) carry the potential of deepening our understanding of the complexities of inclusion, and provide directions for change or continuity of provision as appropriate. REFERENCES
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